SHALL LONG ENDURE? When did the prayer series begin!

THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 2025

It's very Fox News, Hegseth said: Way back then, Pete Hegseth was still in place at his previous post. 

We're inclined to regard Hegseth as someone who lost his way at some place along the road. He tends to be angry and highly adamant. There's never the slightest chance that he could imaginably be even slightly wrong.

Back then, he was still serving as one of three co-hosts of the early morning "cable news" program, Fox & Friends Weekend. 

The day before, a disturbed young man had tried to shoot a presidential candidate. We were struck by what we saw Hegseth say on the next day's "cable news" show.

It was Sunday morning, July 14, 2024.  It started with Lawrence Jones, co-host of the weekday Fox & Friends program, on the scene in Butler, Pa. 

The candidate's life had been spared. Here's what Jones now said:

JONES (7/14/24): There is no Donald Trump today without Jesus Christ this morning. I mean, we could be having a very different conversation this morning—

CAMPOS-DUFFY: That's right.

JONES: —going over the obituary of the 45th president this morning. And if it wasn't for the grace of God, things could have been different. So I give honor and glory to our lord and savior, Jesus Christ, for protecting the former president. 

So said Jones. But soon, so said them all, co-host Will Cain excepted. 

Later that week, we recorded the bulk of what had been said. Along the way, Hegseth said the failure of the attack had been "providential," and he'd also said this:

HEGSETH: We're right, first and foremost, to thank Jesus Christ, the lord almighty, that Donald Trump is safe—

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yeah.

HEGSETH: —and those prayers went out, and to reflect on the historic nature of this. 

So said Hegseth. Eventually, a second weekday co-host, Ainsley Earhardt, also joined in.

EARHARDT: You know, y'all brought up the fact that so many people have prayed for Donald Trump. God has really revealed a lot to us over the past few weeks, with what's really happening behind closed doors at the White House...

Thankfully, the president turned his head at the right moment. God was protecting him and God was with him.

Earhardt didn't specifically say that it had been Jesus Christ.

As we've noted all week, there's nothing "wrong" with believing such things. Many millions of people share such beliefs, and there's no way to prove that they're wrong. 

Also, we would say that it may not be charitable to have a desire to do so.

That said, we thought such statements were very unusual—and were possibly highly instructive—as part of a major "news" program. We also thought they point to what is deeply bred in the bone—to a major part of the human inheritance.

By now, Hegseth has moved to a different job—but we were struck anew by what we saw during the first hour of last Sunday's Fox & Friends Weekend program.

"Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans?" Yes, he did—but for the record, he had similar providential views. Long ago, this greatest of American moral visionaries actually stood up in public and actually offered this:

Second Inaugural Address

[...]

The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses for it must needs be that offenses come but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." 

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which in the providence of God must needs come, but which having continued through His appointed time He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? 

Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said: "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

Lincoln saw the universe that way—engaged in such suppositions. He spoke about providence too.

At this site, we don't share such views—but we regard Lincoln as an unimaginable moral giant. We didn't pick up a similar vibe from last Sunday's Fox & Friends Weekend, in which the friends trashed "Tampon Tim" as quite possibly "evil," then bowed their heads in prayer.

The prayer came from the Hallow prayer app, an explicitly Catholic site ($69.99 per year). It was part of an ongoing "Fox & Friends Prayer Series," co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy—she of the crowd-pleasing "Tampon Tim" jibe—said before reading the prayer.

In the smutty mockery of Governor Walz, but also in the search for evil, we thought the 6 o'clock hour was a tribute to the moral and intellectual squalor which pervades so many Fox News Channel programs. That said:

Early in Sunday's 7 o'clock hour, we saw one of the major ways those of us in Blue America seem to insist on losing to opponents like Candidate Trump. By now, we Blues have invented a thousand ways of losing, or it seems to us. 

We've invented a thousand ways to lose. We'll visit that problem tomorrow. 

For today, we thought we'd share the fruits of a search. We refer to the brief search in which we tried to discover when that surprising "cable news" prayer series began. 

As of last Sunday, we'd been sampling Fox & Friends Weekend for several years. We'd watched the first hour of the program each Saturday and Sunday morning, but we'd never heard of any such ongoing prayer event. 

When did the series begin? When we googled around, we landed on a news report from the ChurchLeaders site. The report appeared on March 22, 2024, when Hegseth was in his old post:

‘Close Your Eyes and Bow Your Head’—Fox News Host Leads Prayer on Live Television

Fox News host Pete Hegseth recited a prayer from the Hallow app for Lent this past Sunday on “Fox & Friends.”

The prayer was part of the “Fox & Friends” Sunday Prayer Series. Hallow, a Catholic meditation and prayer app, is a sponsor of the series.

“This is a transition for transitions,” the 43-year-old Hegseth, who sat alongside cohosts Rachel Campos-Duffy and Will Cain, told viewers. “It is very ‘Fox & Friends,’ so ready your heart.”

Is that where the series began? We can't tell you that.

Still, it was very Fox & Friends, Hegseth was quoted saying. Here's another report from that same week, in this case from CBN:

News Anchor Pete Hegseth Prays and Proclaims the Name of Jesus on National TV

Fox News host Pete Hegseth recently asked “Fox & Friends” viewers—and his cohosts—to bow their heads in prayer for a Bible-app-sponsored segment.

Before turning to prayer, Hegseth said, “You know what, this is a transition for transitions if you’ve ever had one.”

At that point, his cohost Rachel Campos-Duffy interjected, saying it’s “so ‘Fox & Friends'” to pray on live television. He replied, “This is very ‘Fox & Friends,’ so ready your heart."

“It’s the fifth Sunday of Lent, and our prayer series continues with the reading of prayer from the Hallow app,” Hegseth said on the secular news network, noting the network’s partnership with the Catholic prayer app. “We all need it; let’s do it this morning. Close your eyes. If you would, bow your head.”

There again, the series was said to be "continuing," with a suggestion that it only takes place during Lent. We don't know when the series started, but the Fox News Channel may not be quite as "secular" as CBN seemed to think

Perhaps we're being snarky today, but we also give you Lincoln and his beliefs. We'd also direct you to Dr. King—to his endless praise for "the love ethic of Jesus."

We aren't religious believers ourselves, but tens of millions of our friends and neighbors—tens of millions of our fellow citizens—quite plainly are. That said, such belief is like everything else. Religious belief can be accompanied by various forms of judgment.

This past Sunday morning, we thought the judgment displayed on Fox & Friends Weekend was relentlessly poor during the 6 o'clock hour. We described some of that imperfect judgment in Monday morning's report.

Tomorrow, we'll describe imperfect political and moral judgment on the part of our own Blue America. In our view, this imperfect judgment helped get Candidate Trump elected, thereby elevating the struggling Hegseth to his current post.

We'd like to see Pete Hegseth do better. We'd also like to see our own Blue America find a way to heal itself.

Last Sunday, the potential instruction came from Presque Isle, Maine—from way, way up in the north. During the 7 o'clock hour, we thought of President Lincoln himself when we saw the teenage girl who hails from that distant locale.

Lincoln's genius emerged from a distant locale. So has this teenage girl.

Can a nation like ours "long endure?" A few weeks before he himself was killed, a moral giant asked!

Tomorrow: The teenager's tale. Also, what Michelle Goldberg said.